End of the Line
by cywol
Summary: The Straw Hats travel to Raftel, the final island on the Grand Line.
1. Part 1: End of the Line

Each one was neatly and tightly rolled, stowed safely away in the chest which housed them all. Stepping back, Nami stared at the furled sea charts as they lay there in the open box, packed together like rows of gold bullion. Of course, they were worth far more than gold. Her drawing hand – still a little stained with ink – shook a little as she gazed down at what essentially amounted to a map of the entire world. She still had four other seas to finish, but that would be little more than a formality – it would be much easier to travel the North, South, East and West Blue.

This: this was a map of the Grand Line; a map of the most dangerous stretch of ocean on the planet. And it was done.

It was, quite literally, priceless.

Stumbling back to the chair, she sat down once more at the desk. On the table, the candle that she had lit earlier was rocking to-and-fro with the motion of the ship, and the stack of paper that she had been using to draw the charts was threatening to topple onto the floor. She stared at the stack numbly for a few moments, remembering the time when empty pages were all that she had had.

Each individual chart had been a labour of love. She had long ago lost count of the number of inadequate, imperfect sketches that she had tossed into the ocean. Each remaining one was the end result of a painstaking process of editing and reediting, of drawing and redrawing until the final version had met her standards for accuracy and detail. Placing her hands flat on the table top to stop them from trembling, she leant back into her wooden chair, gazing up at the boards in the ceiling. It was all done, at last.

There _was _one place still to visit: one island which remained uncharted. Smiling, Nami closed her eyes, stretching her arms out backwards as she reclined luxuriously in her chair. It would remain that way. Somehow, it just seemed _wrong _to create a map of Raftel – she would let the Marines do that someday, if they could. As the final island on the Grand Line, it had always been a mysterious place, untraveled by all except the Pirate King himself, and nobody who saw a sea chart of it would possibly understand all that that entailed. It was futile to try to show people what Raftel was by mapping it out, so she did not plan to try. If they wanted to know, they would have to find out for themselves.

Standing up, she wandered over to the porthole set into the slatted wall of the room that she shared with Robin and leaned in close, staring through the narrow gap out across the sea. It was dark outside, but the moonlight gleamed on the cresting waves and, together with the gentle sound of rushing water, the sight made her feel at peace. All of a sudden, the tiredness that she had been supressing for hours was upon her again, her legs feeling like leaden weights, threatening to drag her down into blissful oblivion. Stifling a yawn, she leant her forehead against the wall, closing her eyes against the sights outside.

Now that the final map was done, the next job was to visit Raftel and acquire the One Piece. Perhaps it would even be their last destination. She found that unlikely, however; despite it being the final island on the Grand Line, she doubted very much that Luffy planned to stop adventuring once he had found his treasure. In fact, she was pretty certain that he would view it as just another stop on their never-ending journey across the world's waves.

Smiling, and already half-dreaming, Nami snuffed out the candle on the desk quietly, tip-toeing over to her bed so as not to wake Robin, who was sleeping in the bed adjacent. Closing the lid of her wooden storage chest as quietly as she could, sealing the sea charts inside, Nami dove gratefully under the covers, her head awash with thoughts about where they might go and what they might do after Raftel had given up its secrets.

She would not have to wait for long to find out. The island was less than a day away.

They would be there tomorrow.

* * *

She woke early, light streaming vaguely in through the window and covering everything with a fine, filmy glow. Robin had shaken her awake, and the archaeologist's reserved smile was one of the first things that Nami saw as she herself sat up in bed, feeling more refreshed than she had thought she would given how late she had slept.

"It's sunrise. You wanted to be awake for it, didn't you?" Robin enquired.

After rubbing a hand across her eyes quickly, Nami nodded. "Yeah, thanks. I was going to set us off. If we leave now, we should arrive… there… at around midday, I think, judging by the timings we were given." Glancing past Robin to the desk where she had finally completed her last sea chart, she felt her heart jump slightly. "I'll go shower, and then raise the anchor."

"It's amazing to think that we might finally uncover the true history," Robin said, sounding uncharacteristically excited. "The last Poneglyph must be on Raftel, and I'm certain that if I could just read it, it would tie the others together. I'm so close to deciphering what happened during the Void Century_…_"

"It really is amazing," Nami replied, with sincerity. Robin smiled again.

"But how about you? When I went to sleep last night, you were working on those charts. How are they going?"

"I-" Nami paused; the thought of saying it aloud felt strange. "I'm actually…" She paused again, finding the words hard to vocalise. "Well, I'm done."

"Done? You mean you've finished them?"

"Well…" Turning uncertainly to the chest at the side of her bed, Nami reached over to it and, carefully, lifted the lid, allowing Robin to peer inside. Seeing the charts lined up next to one another in the light of day only seemed to make them doubly surreal. But they were all there; just the same as they had been last night. She really had done it. "Yeah. It's hard to believe but… that's everything. That was all I had to do."

She lowered the lid shut once more, feeling a little lost. That chest really did contain everything – everything that she had worked on for the last few years, bound up nicely into neat rows of rolled and sealed paper. Thinking back on the hours that she had invested into them – the sleepless nights, the frustration and elation in equal measure, and the constant awareness of the sheer magnitude of what she was attempting to accomplish – made Nami feel dizzy. Meanwhile, Robin was staring at her oddly, as if seeing her again for the first time.

"That's incredible, Nami! You should be very proud – what you've managed to do is something that nobody has ever done before!"

"I am," Nami said hastily, realising that Robin might have misread her lack of reaction as indifference. "I know what- what it means, it's just hard to get my head around it…"

"But you're going to tell everyone, right? This is something we should all celebrate, I'm sure our cook would be more than willing to prepare a party!"

"I will," Nami said quickly. "I mean, I'm going to… I just," She glanced past Robin to the door onto the deck. "Perhaps it would be best to wait?" Seeing Robin's expression, she added hastily, "Only until we're done with Raftel, of course. We'll all have clearer heads…"

"Hmm." Robin's pursed lips suggested that she was not quite convinced. "Well, I suppose we have all been quite distracted by the island. However, this really is something we should be celebrating, Nami…"

"I know," Nami said, smiling. "And we will, just not today. I just think everyone should be focusing right now; I can get us there, but I don't know what's ahead. We need to be prepared for anything."

Robin conceded the point with a tilt of her head. "Alright, but as soon as we've finished with Raftel, make sure to tell everyone. Do you need any help this morning?"

"No, it's alright," Nami smiled brightly. "I'll wake the guys and then set us on course. We just need to follow the pose for another few hours, and then we'll be there… as long as we aren't slowed down by anything."

"How exciting! Alright, I'll join you soon – I just need to go over my notes so they're fresh in my head."

After parting from Robin, Nami took a quick shower, got dressed and headed immediately out onto the deck. It was still early, and the sun had only just risen above the treetops of the island at which they were anchored. The sky – a pale, milky omnipresence, with the lightest of hints of red – reminded her a little of Drum Island at its most serene. Though the air had a biting chill to it, the compensatory salty tang of the sea and the dizzying vista of blue ocean spread out in all directions made it worth being outside.

Knocking briskly on the door to the men's quarters, she shouted, "Hey, guys, time to go!"

Predictably, there were groans. No matter the situation, they sure did like to sleep. Grinning as she headed over to the ship's rail, she leant out over the bulwark, bringing Raftel's Eternal Pose ponderously to eye-level. As it had the night before, the red tip of the suspended shard was pointing confidently at the horizon.

Following with her eyes the invisible line that the pose marked out across the sea, she felt the smile slip gradually from her face. In the distance, the sky was calm, untroubled even by the reddish clouds which currently loomed over the Thousand Sunny. It should have reassured her, but despite the serene sight she could not stop her heart from skipping a beat.

She had been a navigator long enough to know never to trust the weather, and a pirate long enough to know never to trust the waters of the Grand Line. Appearances could be very deceiving. After all, even in the eye of a hurricane there was an area of calm.

Of all the ships to have ever sailed the New World; of all the hundreds, perhaps thousands of sailors to reach the threshold between that sea-among-seas and Raftel; only one had ever found the island and lived to return. That fact was stark in her head at that moment, just as clear as the false horizon ahead. She would not forget it.

Every place that they had visited so far had tested them. At some, they had almost been overwhelmed. Blue skies or not, she was not going to let her guard down.

Whatever tests Raftel had in store, she was certain of one thing only: they would not be easy.


	2. Part 2: The Maelstrom

**Thanks for the reads and comments for part one, I really appreciate it. I hope this is an alright part two! Please let me know what you think!  
**

* * *

When she first heard the sound, Nami thought she was imagining things. It was quiet at first; a low, distant rumbling, like the aftershocks of some faraway earthquake. But the sound built, and built, and built, until even Luffy - perched atop the Sunny's silent figurehead - was staring ahead, wondering what was to come. Standing behind him, in unnatural silence, Zoro, Sanji and Robin faced the horizon, which had turned the dark, deep blue of tumultuous water. It did not escape Nami's attention that Zoro's swords stayed sheathed, Robin's hands lay at her sides, and Sanji showed no intention of moving. Their collective thought went unsaid, but all on deck knew what it was.

This bit was up to her.

"What are _they?" _Usopp's terrified voice resonated dully in Nami's head. Her entire body felt cold as she looked from the Eternal Pose - pointing straight ahead - to the distant mist, and back again. "Are they… _tornadoes?"_

"Not tornadoes," Nami heard herself answer, shaking her head slowly. She swallowed hard. "Geysers."

As far and as wide as the eye could see, pillars of water rose high into the air. Monolithic in appearance, each one was just as imposing as any giant that they had ever met on their travels, and many times taller. Dragging water greedily from the ocean, the vast structures lifted the liquid aloft, only to cast it back down upon the sea in sheets of thundering, cacophonous rain.

That was the sound: the apocalyptic, roaring accompaniment to an impossible situation.

"This is bad, we have to turn back," Usopp moaned, backing away quickly from the prow. "Nami, turn us around! There's no way the ship can survive that!"

Numbly, Nami looked at the Eternal Pose again. Straight ahead.

"We can't turn around," she said detachedly. "This is the right way - the only way."

The colossal columns of water were blotting out the sun, she noted without emotion. Not only was she supposed to get them through this unscathed, she was also supposed to do it in the dark, in heavy rain. Everything she had ever learned about sailing a ship told her that it was impossible, that they would be shredded to pieces by tidal forces in a matter of seconds and their shattered remains hurled skyward at hundreds of miles an hour.

She shuddered. That was not a helpful thought.

Even so, she could not move past it. There was nobody on the face of the planet capable of guiding a tiny ship through the whorls and currents between those flowing spires. It was impossible, in the purest sense. It was not possible.

And yet, she found herself standing rigidly at the ship's wheel, unable to bring herself to turn the ship around.

"Nami." Despite Luffy being only a few metres away, she could barely hear him. His voice was almost drowned out by the geysers, but she did not need to hear him clearly to know what he was going to say. "Keep us on course," he said eventually, in a tone that brooked no argument.

"I know," she replied. And that was that. They were going in: it really was happening. "Zoro, Luffy, you've cut through water before with Aqua Laguna. If we come too close to one of those things…"

_We're all dead,_ her mind supplied unhelpfully.

"…I'm going to need you to try to… chop it down, or something."

Zoro gave her a look that suggested he knew exactly how useful chopping down the geyser was likely to be, but Luffy leapt to his feet. "Yeah! I'm not scared of water! I'm gonna punch those things until there's nothing left!"

Following that, he let out what could only be described as a war cry, and began winding up his fist. Staring at his back incredulously, Nami thought about telling him that destroying the geysers would do little except disrupt the currents and make the thin passages between the columns even more difficult to navigate, and then remembered that telling him something like that would be entirely useless. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

"Alright," she said quietly, trying to empty her mind of her doubts. Resting her hands on the sea-sprayed wheel of the Thousand Sunny, she waited until her heart rate had lowered and she felt something close to calm. "Franky, you're going to have to steer. We'll need your strength to move the ship fast enough. Luffy, Zoro, it's your job to keep those geysers off us. Usopp, Chopper, Brook; you'll be bailing water."

"Water? What water?" Chopper's sounded nervous, and his cute round eyes were full of confusion.

"There'll be water on the deck," Nami said flatly. "A lot of water. As for me," She tailed off, swallowing nervously again as she stared at the oncoming, titanic columns of water. Even from a distance, she could perceive some of the hidden currents, see the movements of the ocean as it pushed, pulled and otherwise strained against itself. "I'm going to be shouting directions. Franky, I'll need you to follow them exactly, and straightaway. We won't have much of a margin for error."

"Leave it to me and the Sunny!" Franky's eyes gleamed with intent as he took over from her at the wheel. "A little bit of water isn't going to take her down!"

"Alright."

Heading over to the prow, Nami rested her right hand against the figurehead as she gazed ahead towards the oncoming storm. Despite the chill of the sea spray, her palms were clammy and she was shaking heavily. Once again, she tried taking a deep breath, but this time it did not help. She felt as if all her blood had turned into adrenaline: her eyes were wide; she could not stop trembling; and her heart was beating at what was surely an unhealthy rate.

"Sanji, you're probably the most agile of us…" She swallowed her pride. "I'll… need you to make sure that nobody gets thrown overboard. That's your job."

"Leave it to me, Nami my sweet!" Sanji replied tremulously. "Your knight in shining armour will protect you!"

"Great," she commented dryly. And then, under her breath, "OK, here we go…"

The threshold of the maelstrom beckoned, rushing water thundering chaotically through a passageway between two titanic geysers. The steady pace of the Sunny had finally brought the ship to the event horizon; the place where the Grand Line began to rush forward like a river, funnelling itself through the narrow straits created by the geysers as it headed towards…

Well, towards something.

The rumble - the terrible, ceaseless roar - grew louder, and louder, until it thundered inside Nami's head like a drumbeat. Vectors and trajectories bounced around inside her head as she gazed into the midst of the torrent, yearning for something that she was not even sure existed; a path through it. For a moment, the rest of the world disappeared from her awareness, her focus shrinking down until all that she saw - all that she could see - were the looming, impossible spires.

Time ticked by at a fraction of its usual pace as she peered into the water. There had to be something. This could not be all that Raftel was, in the end - a vortex of death drawing all great sailors down into the ocean's velvety depths. There had to be more to it.

"Come on," she whispered, as the geysers loomed overhead. "Come on, show me…"

And then, as the Thousand Sunny passed into the narrow darkness between the geysers, she suddenly saw it: a pattern to the whirling water. The maelstrom - despite its apparent chaos - was eminently ordered.

As the abyss gaped before her and she filled her lungs, readying herself to scream orders, she found herself remembering.

* * *

"_Stop her!"_

_The cries of the traders strike at her skin like hail, lashing her as she dodges this way and that, leaping over storefronts and ducking under the arms which grasp to stop her. The chunk of bread in her hand is scarcely even half a meal, but in a busy market town like Douma, it is enough to get you killed. As Nami runs, a wayward, lucky fist clubs her across the head and she falls, groggy but still conscious, to the floor. Fear - fear of capture and the threats that that would bring - is enough to get her to scrabble to her feet and to duck into a nearby alleyway, pressing her back up against the cold stone and squeezing her eyes tightly shut as her pursuers continue on past, swearing and shouting. _

"_Keep going," she whispers to herself, her muscles burning with torment as she pushes herself off the wall and begins to hobble deeper into the alleyway's darkness. "They're counting on you, all the villagers. Nojiko…" Her eyes tear up as her sister's image lingers in front of her exhausted gaze. "Nojiko is counting on you, and so is Bellemere."_

_She struggles farther into the alleyway, soon finding a small alcove - little more than a damp, squalid corner filled with dirt and assorted junk. The sounds of the furious market vendors can still be heard, but in the alcove the sound is dampened. _

_One hundred million Beri. Nami blinks despairing tears away. How is she supposed to get a hundred million Beri if she cannot even steal a loaf of bread? At least, she tells herself, she has the chunk of bread which she tore from the market stand, but when she unclenches her fist her disbelieving eyes find nothing except a few scattered crumbs. Her whole body cries out with horror - her stomach especially agonised - except for her mouth, which trembles but stays closed. Even as tears blur her vision, she wonders dully when she lost it: straight away; during the chase; or after the blow to the head? At that moment, she would have taken all that pain again a thousandfold if it would have meant having a bite to eat. _

"_I can't do this," she hears herself sob. "Nojiko, Bellemere… Mom, I can't do this…"_

_Clutching her knees to her chest, she shivers in the alcove amid the discarded debris. There are clouds overhead already. It will be another cold and rainy night, and she will go hungry once again. _

_Arlong. It is all his fault. She hates him then, but knows that her hate is futile. Arlong is too strong - the soon-to-be ruler of the whole East Blue - and it is her fate to work for him forever. _

* * *

"HARD TO PORT NOW, FRANKY!" she screamed as an extraordinary wave crashed against the hull, blasting a sheet of icy water across the deck. As the boat lurched away from the geyser, missing the point of no return by little more than a second, another column of water seemed to emerge from nowhere, drawing the Sunny greedily in towards destruction. "STARBOARD, DON'T LET THE SHIP TILT MORE THAN 35 DEGREES! HOLD US STEADY NOW!"

They rode the geyser, swept clockwise by the water churning at its periphery. Chopper, Usopp and Robin were bailing water furiously, struggling against the torrential rain, and Sanji, one arm wrapped desperately around the rail, was pinning her to the bulwark with his other hand. Without his assistance, she would have already gone overboard.

* * *

"_Nami!" Luffy bellows, voice raw with emotion. "You'll always be my friend!"_

_Even with the shattered remains of Arlong's empire underfoot, he does not really know what he has done. She has not cried for a long time, not since she was very young, but the tears flow treacherously down her cheeks in that moment, years of suppressed pain and crushed hopes suddenly finding an outlet as the impossible rubber man - the brave, idealistic idiot - stands atop the rubble of her prison, the sun at his back and triumph on his face. _

_He has done it. He has felled Arlong, the monster who took everything from her. _

_She has no words; none are adequate. _

"_Y-yeah," she sobs. _

_A hundred million years could pass - a year for every Beri that she has gathered together beneath the tangerine orchard - but she will never be able to pay back the debt she owes to Luffy. Some things are worth much more than treasure. _

_There is one thing that she can do, and she will do it gladly all her life, if he wishes. _

_She could be his navigator. _

* * *

Adrift in the maelstrom and in her memories, Nami barely registers the words that leave her lips; the fierce instructions that she shrieks at Franky, whose mechanical form - despite its myriad enhancements and secret abilities - can barely keep up with her. As the wind roars and rain cascades across the hull, she becomes one with the storm, and all of a sudden she can see everything: the currents; the waves; the motions of the geysers; and the path ahead. The maelstrom is a titanic beast, but like every monster that they have met on their travels, it has a weakness. At its heart, it is the water of the Grand Line, and she has seen it all before.

The Thousand Sunny banks to the left, veering away from yet another vortex. Nami calls again, and it dodges another. The others are panicked, but she is calm. Every hand which the maelstrom casts out to halt the ship is falling short, and she sees the attacks for what they are: little more than the feeble grasps and desperate lunges of a fighter who has already lost. Once more they ride a geyser, the ship flying as it skims the ocean which - she now realises - she mastered a long time ago.

As they sweep around the final geyser effortlessly, having carved a flowing, gentle path around each and every one, Nami tilts her head back to let the rain wash over her face. At its most transcendent, sailing the Sunny is like dancing with the waves. When she opens her eyes again, she sees that Luffy is half-turned on his fiery perch, his broad smile mirroring hers.

Sunlight breaks behind his hat as they slip from the fingers of the maelstrom, and she realises that he knows - perhaps he has always known.

This is what she is meant to do. This is where she was always meant to be.

Open sea greets the Sunny as the final geyser hurls them forward. In the distance, a new shadow has appeared.

An island.

Raftel.


	3. Part 3: The Reflection Gate

**Edit 03/01/2014: Minor chronology problem. I kept seeing it, alright? :P**

**Next chapter is imminent...**

* * *

The last stretch of ocean - running from the edge of the Maelstrom to the shores of Raftel - passed in an instant. When the euphoric feeling of being in total command of the ship and the elements had passed and Nami had realised that she had somehow done the impossible and led the ship through the geysers, a wave of relief passed over her that was just as strong as the waves that had just been crashing against the Thousand Sunny. Despite the claps on the back and the congratulatory shouts of her friends, it took a while for the tension to slip from her shoulders, and by the time it had they had nearly reached the island. Of course, by then the others had long recovered from the ordeal, and it was Sanji who spoke first.

"So this is it," he stated, eyes on the sight ahead.

"Yeah," replied Luffy. They all stood in silence for a moment. "I thought it would be bigger," he complained, to the amazement of all on deck.

"Bigger?" Zoro sounded appropriately astonished. "Are you out of your mind? We spend half our lives getting here, nearly die a hundred times over, and the island isn't _big _enough for you?"

"It's not that… I just thought it would be larger, is all." Luffy pouted, pointedly avoiding Zoro's eyes.

"Do you have any sense of perspective at all?"

Nami fought the urge to roll her eyes and/or shake her head tiredly. "Are you really asking that, Zoro?"

The swordsman glanced her way, then looked back at Luffy, who was still pouting. Comprehension dawned. "Right, of course. My mistake."

It _was_ pretty plain though, Nami admitted to herself. Raftel was conspicuous in its inconspicuousness. They had only just become able to observe it, of course, so they had no way of knowing what the other areas of the island might look like, but the section of coast that they could see was certainly unremarkable. Pale sands shifted uneasily as gentle waves swept inland, the water stretching out yearningly towards a tideline that it would never reach. Beyond that line, dry grass waved eerily in a vague wind, and a tall forest screened the rest of the island from view. There was one interesting feature, however.

Scattered all across the ivory beach, some of it half-buried, was wreckage. Sections of timber; gold and silver goblets; an old and rotting chessboard; a broken guitar; treasure chests, large and small; a broken sword; ruined, ancient books: all these and more lay upon the sand, baking in the early afternoon sun. As she leaned out over the ocean, peering at the assorted debris, a chill that had nothing to do with the cold passed through Nami's body. The island's message could not have been clearer. This may well be a place where dreams were made, but it was also a place that dreamers came to die.

"Nami." Sanji's voice got her attention. He sounded serious - he was probably thinking the same things that she was, for once. "Should we stop here?"

"No," she said quickly. "Franky, take us around the island. I want to know what we're dealing with."

"Of course," Franky replied. He was another one sounding oddly subdued.

The wind was so light, Nami reflected, as the Sunny veered slowly away from the debris-strewn beach. She found herself looking up at the sky where only thin, high clouds could now be seen. The difference between the area around Raftel and the encircling Maelstrom really was uncanny. For some odd reason, she felt like shuddering; there was a faint sense of unease that she could not shake - a creeping, steadily building sense of dread that had a single point of focus: the island.

But what was wrong? Her skin prickled as she gazed at the distant treetops, the air around her still as a held breath. It was so mundane - almost featureless - so why did she have the overwhelming urge to turn the ship away and to flee, even knowing that if she did they would have to go through the Maelstrom again? It made no sense. She had seen so many different beaches; there was no reason to feel such a chill at the thought of alighting on Raftel's inert sands.

"The air feels strange here. The wind has died." Robin's voice, coming from a few metres away, did little to settle Nami's unease. "It is as if everything is coming to an end."

They continued on their steady path for some time, seeing nothing except forest and debris, until the mouth of a slender river became visible. Ordinarily, Nami would have thought nothing of it and carried on past, hoping to find a better place to weigh anchor, but this time she held up a hand.

"Hold on, Franky, take us closer to that river."

He did as she said, and when they were closer her fears were confirmed. It looked like a river, but somehow - impossibly - the water was flowing inland, inching its way past Raftel's forbidding boundaries. Instinct told her that this was it: this was the entrance.

"Slow us down, we're going to travel up it," she said, her voice somehow not betraying her misgivings.

"Up the river?" Franky sounded confused.

"Look carefully. The water is moving in reverse. The centre of the island… well, it must be below sea level." She frowned. "It might even be more than one island; we could be entering an archipelago."

"If that's true, why is the water moving like that? It should be still!" said Usopp, with an edge of panic. Nami shook her head slowly in response.

"I don't know, but the water _is_ acting strangely around here. There are artificial currents, and nothing about those geysers can possibly be natural. Something - I don't know what - is causing huge disruption."

She knew that that was a mistake as soon as she said it.

"It must be the _curse of the island_," Usopp began to wail. "Nami, this place isn't safe. It could be…" He locked eyes with Chopper, who looked equally panicked. "_Haunted_," he gibbered dramatically, making the little reindeer quiver in fear. "Yes, in fact I remember hearing a story about the island that _swallows ships whole. _Why else would there are so many things on the b-beach?"

As the two huddled together, Nami rolled her eyes. "Come on, this is nothing we haven't dealt with before. Even if it is haunted, it's not like you're a stranger to ghosts."

Predictably, this caused chaos on deck, Usopp and Chopper's senses of terror reaching critical levels. Blocking the sound of the commotion from her ears, Nami fixed her eyes firmly on the future path of the Sunny, watching intently as Franky's careful control guided the ship into the mouth of the river. From there, the current began to carry them inland, guiding them past the pale beach and the sparse grassland into the forest, where tall trees hemmed in the water and a dense, ominous canopy shrouded the sky from view. Aside from the clamour of the crew behind her, Nami could hear very little; only the sound of slowly rushing water. She could hear nothing from between the trees - the forest itself was as silent as a grave. Eventually, when they had finished squabbling, the crew, too, quietened, and they were all plunged into a silence unlike any that Nami had ever experienced. Luffy - who had not participated in the shouting match - remained unnaturally quiet, his eyes set dead ahead and his body visibly taught with tension.

The channel took them on a meandering path through the forest, weaving through the boughs unhurriedly. Something in the way that its path coiled reminded Nami of a snake lazily stalking its prey. Once again, she chided herself for having what could only really be described as an _unhelpful _thought.

Eventually, the river straightened out. Ahead, something began to loom out of the dinginess created by the leafy treetop canopy. Leaning out over the prow, she had to squint in order to see it, but once she did she held up a hand, telling Franky to slow down.

"Hold on." With the ship's speed easing down, she had plenty of time to study the structure in front of them. Repeating viewing, however, did not make it easier to understand. Bewildered, she turned to the rest of the crew, only to find each and every one of them looking just as nonplussed as she felt.

It was a gate. Or, at least, it looked like a gate. In a way, it was reminiscent of Enies Lobby's Gates of Justice; tall, isolated and imposing. However, the foliage by which it was enshrouded, and the rugged, brownish stone from which it had been constructed, told Nami that it was something else entirely - something old, and of a completely different nature to any other barrier. Vines scaled its surface, branching like webbing. It did not escape her attention that intact vines stretched across the gap between the gate's two sections, suggesting that it had not been opened for some time. Perhaps it had never been opened.

Before the gate, there was a platform; a place to disembark. It was covered with mud, which was presumably the result of rainfall sweeping through the nearby forest, and looked to be intended as an arena of some sort. A withered, splintered wooden sign hung forlornly from a post which was clumsily embedded in this platform, but from their current distance Nami could not read it.

"I don't think we're going any further with the Sunny," she said regretfully. "I think we'll have to get off here. Everyone OK with that?"

"It's not like we have much choice," Zoro responded, typically curt and rude. "Besides, it was bound to happen eventually." Unsheathing then sheathing his swords, he stared balefully at the shuttered gates. "Looks to me like we'll have to cut through here, if we want to go any further. Doesn't look like whoever built this place wants visitors."

"It could be a test of some sort," Sanji pondered, moving to the bow to get a closer look. "Maybe we have to do something to have it let us pass. It wouldn't be the first time that we've had to solve a puzzle in order to get somewhere. If it is, I doubt _you'll _be any help."

"What did you say to me?!" Zoro was incensed.

"I said your thick skull isn't going to help us get through this gate!"

"SAY THAT AGAIN, COOK, I DARE YOU!"

"I SAID YOUR THICK SKULL-"

"Stop." Luffy's single syllable made Nami jump. At some point, he had got to his feet, and he was currently staring at the broken sign attached to the platform. Immediately, Sanji and Zoro stopped squabbling, their eyes on their captain as he stood on the Sunny's figurehead. "Look at what it says."

"You can read it from here?" Nami asked incredulously. Luffy just bowed his head. "What- what does it say? It's too far away for us to read it."

"I can read it," Franky corrected. His face was sombre.

"And what does it say?"

The cyborg's eyes narrowed. "It's strange. 'Set your strongest before this door.' It doesn't make much sense."

"The strongest…" Robin repeated, adding simply, "well, that's you, captain. It looks like you're being summoned."

One by one, they turned to look at Luffy. He seemed to ponder his decision for a few moments, but then he bowed his head again.

"Alright."

And without any further warning, he leapt from the figurehead down onto the platform, gazing up at the gates as they remained closed. Franky dropped the Sunny's anchor quickly, the sound of the chain reeling out seeming unnaturally shrill and piercing. Still the gates remained closed.

"I don't like this," Nami heard herself murmur, after a few empty seconds had passed.

"Nor do I," a voice next to her replied. Brook was standing alongside her, concern drifting somewhere in the twin voids that were his eyes.

"Luffy," Nami whispered, as their captain began to advance towards the gates. "Be careful here…"

And then, without warning, the gates began to glow.

"What the-" Zoro shielded his eyes. "What's going on?"

Events only became more bizarre. Suddenly, the gates vanished with a thunderclap, air rushing into the vacuum created by their disappearance. Stunned, Nami blinked a few times, her eyes on Luffy, who had come to a halt. After a pause, he began scratching his head. For a few moments, there was silence. Where the gates had been, there was now just a path leading off into the forest.

"Is that… it?" Robin sounded shocked, but pleased. Nami did not know what to think.

Luffy turned to face them; he was some distance away now, but they could easily see him shrug.

Uncertainly, Nami said: "I guess… it must-"

"Oh, so is this where I come in?"

The voice cut the air like a blade, cold and sharp. Jumping with shock, Nami span around wildly; the sound seemed to have come from everywhere at once. "What the-"

For a long moment, she and the rest of the crew searched for the source of the voice, finding nothing.

And then: "There!" she heard Robin gasp. Spinning to face the archaeologist, Nami saw that she was pointing down at the arena. "He just came out of the trees! There's somebody standing where the gate-"

Robin's voice tailed off, her complexion turning pale. She never finished that sentence. With mounting dread, Nami leant out over the Sunny's bulwark once again, craning her neck to get a look at the person who had taken the place of the strange gates.

Her heart skipped a beat.

"That's impossible," she breathed.

Because the person clad all in black - the person with cold, forbidding eyes and a cruel smirk, who was walking towards a captivated Luffy - was someone she recognised. It was someone they all recognised.

Of all the people who could have stood in their way, this was, without a doubt, the worst.

"Hello there. My name is Luffy," said the shadowy figure into the stunned silence, flashing a menacing, anticipant smile. His eyes were on the Sunny, but they soon dropped to scrutinise the figure directly in front of him. Luffy seemed to be frozen to the spot, as if he could not believe what he was seeing. "But I suppose you can call me Dark Luffy, for simplicity's sake."

The man - Dark Luffy - spread his arms wide, faux-invitingly. His smile was truly haunting.

"Welcome to Raftel."

* * *

**Next up: the first fight. **


	4. Part 4: The Image

**I don't know if this is any good. Ho hum. _Bold Italics_ are fighting techniques!**

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"'Dark Luffy?'" Luffy repeated. "What's that? Who are you, and why do you look like me?"

That last one was the real question, thought Nami, as she gaped down at the shadowy figure blocking their path. He had the same face, but that was about it: his posture, his expression, his clothes, and the way he spoke were all very different to those of the Luffy to which they were accustomed. He even lacked the straw hat. Still, if he was anywhere near as strong as Luffy…

She shuddered. They could really do without meeting someone like that.

Meanwhile, Dark Luffy - as he seemed to want to be known - was eyeing Luffy ponderously. "Look like you, you say?" He smiled, completely without mirth. "I don't see it."

"What?" The volume of Luffy's voice rose a little. "You look exactly like me, and you say your name is the same as mine!"

"Our names are the same, true," Dark Luffy replied, "but I don't think we'd look the same to anyone." As quickly as it had appeared, the smile faded from Dark Luffy's face. "Besides, if anything, _you _look like _me, _not the other way round. Don't get things backwards."

"What are you talking about? It's no different," said Luffy, bewildered.

Dark Luffy's face - appropriately - darkened. "It's very different. You see, _you_ are something that you see every day; someone who has not achieved their true potential. I, on the other hand," he continued, "am someone you do _not_ see every day. I am everything that I could have been."

So he _had_ been going somewhere with that 'dissimilar' charge. He was trying to make a point. Worried, Nami kept her eyes on Luffy. There was something very odd about Dark Luffy, something besides the obvious fact that he looked exactly the same as Luffy himself. It was in the way that he carried himself, but she could not quite place what it was.

In any case, the accusation had left Luffy perplexed. "What'd you say?"

Dark Luffy glared at him, and then, slowly, drew himself up to his full height.

"I'm saying," He began quietly, then roared: "WHY DID YOU TAKE SO LONG TO GET HERE?"

The shout shook the forest, loud as an earthquake and forceful as a landslide. Even though she was standing a fair distance away, safe upon the Thousand Sunny, Nami took an involuntary step backwards. A moment passed, as the bellow pealed into the distance, leaving behind a silence weighty with significance.

"Why did I take so long?" Luffy still sounded confused. "You don't make any sense."

Dark Luffy took a deep breath. He looked to be holding in his temper. "I'm talking about the time you have wasted helping these…" He glanced at the Thousand Sunny, wrinkling his nose dismissively. "_Misfits._ You didn't need them to get here; you don't need them now. You can achieve all you want to achieve on your own. But instead of doing all that you could to reach this island, you've gone on all your wild adventures with this hapless _crew _of yours. You don't deserve this island's secrets."

Luffy scratched his head, and then glanced back at the Thousand Sunny. He looked bemused. "So… what are you supposed to be?" he asked eventually.

"I'm your potential - the perfect version of you. I am you as you could have been by now."

Once more, Luffy scratched his head. And then, he said, flatly: "I don't see it."

"See what?"

"I don't think you're me or my potential or anything like that. It doesn't fit."

Dark Luffy ground his teeth together so ferociously that it was visible from the ship. "What?" he snarled.

"You're way weaker than I am, so it doesn't make sense."

A thrill shot through Nami's chest. Obviously Luffy must have seen some vulnerability that he could exploit, otherwise he would not have said something like that.

Ah, wait. Her heart sunk. He absolutely would have said something like that, even if the other person was hideously powerful.

"Weaker than you?" Dark Luffy repeated. His voice had changed, and was now laced with danger. A chill ran down Nami's spine. "Well, I somehow seem to have underestimated your stupidity." The shadows in his eyes were unfathomable; forbidding. "Perhaps I will show you how wrong you are, right now. You see, _you _ate the Gum-Gum fruit, didn't you?"

"Yup," Luffy replied, altogether too cheerfully.

"Well, since I am your true potential, I never did. Would you like to guess what that means?"

Nami leant forward. She had just realised what it was; the strangeness surrounding Dark Luffy. The way that he carried himself was different, and, as her horror mounted, she understood why.

He was used to fighting with a different Devil Fruit.

"_**Black Meridian!"**_ cried Dark Luffy, lifting his hands aloft.

The effect was immediate, and terrifying. Dark clouds surged out of nowhere, sweeping the sun out of the sky in a matter of moments and plunging the island into sudden darkness. Churning ferociously, with lightning sparking in their midst, they reminded Nami of the Maelstrom's geysers, only far more obviously malevolent. Taking a step back, she stared up at the sky, feeling dizzy. Was it weather magic, like the Clima-Tact, only on a far greater scale? Either way, the change had been so quick and so categorical that only one conclusion could safely be drawn.

"Luffy," she yelled, "be careful, this guy is seriously strong! I think he is using weather magic!"

Luffy glanced at her, nodding quickly to show he understood. His expression had changed - sobered, perhaps, at the display of raw power - but he still looked confident. Dark Luffy had looked at her as well, and he had not looked away. There was a musing look to his gaze that woke a sense of sickness in her gut. She was not sure what he was thinking, but it was nothing good.

"Pretty," he commented, somehow managing to make just that single word sound like a terrible threat. Nami heard the crew shuffle, could feel them edging protectively closer. Luffy's hands clenched into fists.

"Don't talk about them," he said simply, sounding angry for the first time since Dark Luffy had arrived. "This is me and you." He paused, reconsidering. "Me and... Me?"

Dark Luffy, finally, turned his attention back to Luffy, leaving Nami feeling as if she had just been released from prison. "Oh, it is? Yes, I suppose it is." Still, however, he did not attack, instead folding his arms casually across his chest. "Tell me, why do you even keep these people around? They're just holding you back. Think about it..." Dark Luffy smiled coldly. "I have your memories, so I will think about it too. Remember when you ate the Gum-Gum fruit? That was Shanks's fault, and really, when you think about it, it set the precedent for what was to come."

"Shut up. I don't care what you have to say."

"Just consider for a moment how much further you might have come by now if you had always been alone." Dark Luffy shook his head, regret in his eyes. Most worrying was the assured, confident tone. "You could have accomplished so much more than you have! Cocoyashi village, Enies Lobby, Sky Island: all these are places you would never have visited if you had pursued your dream. All you have done is delay, delay and delay, and you expect me to let you through this gate? When you yourself didn't even care enough about your own dream? Ridiculous." Dark Luffy sneered, and then his eyes turned to the boat again. He looked too calm, too collected; horribly confident. "Let me tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to rip your whole crew apart. Would you like that?" Dark Luffy smirked. "It _will _be entertaining, watching them suffer…"

_**"Gum Gum pistol!"**_ Luffy bellowed, and Nami could hear his fury. He threw a punch that whistled past Dark Luffy's face, missing by little more than an inch. But miss it did, and Dark Luffy straightened up quickly. Slowly, almost lazily, he extended a finger, pointing at Luffy.

_**"Black Meridian..."**_ he said again. The ground began to rumble, even the river and the trees thundering with the vibrations. Overhead, the clouds began to spin, drawn by some unseen force to rotate so fast that Nami could not even keep track of the movement.

"What the…" she whispered. This was not just power - this was impossible power. Then, she remembered. "Luffy," she screamed, desperately. "Run!"

_**"Radiant Wave!"**_

The band of energy that swept down from the heavens could have hit at the speed of light, so intense was the explosion that bloomed with blinding intensity in front of Nami's eyes. The force of the impact was meteoric, the shockwave lifting her from her feet and sending her soaring backwards to crash down onto the deck, even the Sunny itself almost lifted out of the water by the blast. For a few moments, she lay groggy on her back, but as the rumble of Dark Luffy's first attack pealed away into the distance, she managed to roll over, pushing herself up with her trembling arms. Despite feeling as if she had been hit by a cannonball, only one thing was running through her mind. If that was the power of just the shockwave, what damage had the actual attack done?

"Nami, are you ok?!"

Chopper was hurrying towards her, medical kit at the ready, but she waved him away. Sanji and Zoro were staggering, dazzled. She had been standing closest to the bulwark, so she had felt the impact most heavily, but nobody had escaped unscathed. Even Franky's mechanical body was sparking in places.

"I'm alright," she gasped breathlessly. "Let's... Let's hope that's the only time he can use that, or we're in a lot of trouble. Luffy," Staggering back to the bulwark, she leant over it again. "Is Luffy...?"

She froze.

"Well, that was all too easy."

It couldn't be true.

"I expected a little more fight, I have to say. Then again, that attack could have split the island in half, so I suppose this outcome isn't entirely unexpected."

Even from a distance, she could see a figure lying on the floor, a deep slash gouged into the Haki-augmented skin that he had used to mitigate the force of the blow. A ravine - a deep, narrow gorge - had been cut into the ground, bisecting the arena as if someone had struck Raftel with a gigantic axe. The fissure did not extend into the treeline, but Nami barely registered this fact. She was more concerned with the figure, whose straw hat had toppled from his head. Luffy was not moving.

"Luffy!" she screamed.

Dark Luffy, who was standing over his body, glanced at her lazily. "Be patient, girl. I'll be with you all shortly. I'll just finish with this weakling first."

"Get away from him!" she shrieked, beginning to lift herself over the ship's rail.

There was no way she was going to just stand by and watch, not when she was still able to fight. She was not helpless anymore - she did not have to stand by and witness the people she loved get killed. Even if Dark Luffy was an opponent she could never hope to beat, she would try. It was better than doing nothing.

Hands seized her, though, holding her back.

"Wait, Nami!" Sanji's voice was in her ear. He was the one stopping her from moving. "Look. It isn't over yet."

He was right, she realised, after she had had time to take a few deep breaths and refocus. All was not yet lost. In her panic, she had not noticed, but Luffy _was_ still moving; albeit slowly.

"Tell me," Luffy rasped, struggling for breath. "Tell me who you... Are."

Dark Luffy's expression turned ugly. "Didn't you listen? I'm your potential, I'm who you-"

"No," Luffy snapped forcefully, making Nami jump. He was glaring up at Dark Luffy now. "I didn't see it at first, but I do now. You were right before, we aren't alike."

Dark Luffy smirked. "Well, I see you finally understand..."

"We're nothing alike," Luffy continued, interrupting him again. "You talk about my dream, as if becoming King of the... Pirates is just... Something I could do on my own. You talk about my dream as if..." He coughed, bowing his head briefly. "As if it's just one thing. So you can't be me. You can't even be close to me."

"What are you talking about?"

"My dream isn't just one thing anymore. None of us have just... One dream." With difficulty, Luffy clambered to his feet, the great slash down his back dripping blood onto the floor. Despite his wounds, however, he was speaking with strength. Once upright, he stared levelly at Dark Luffy. "We have each other's dreams now, too. If you don't have them, you can't be me."

"I'm NOT you! Why would I want to be you?" Dark Luffy bellowed, appearing incensed by Luffy's words and his calmness. "A weakling like you could never conquer this island! You don't have a hope! Where is your strength?! I am a thousand times more powerful than you have ever been, and my Chaos-Chaos fruit is far superior to your useless paramecia!" He took a deep breath, shaking with rage. "You don't have the power! Where is your iron WILL?"

Somehow, Nami knew what was coming. As Dark Luffy straightened up, righteous fury in his eyes, she could see the beginnings of that monstrous power that Luffy had brought with him back to Saboady: the same force that had sent 50,000 fishmen crashing to the ground.

Conqueror's Haki.

"My will?"

Luffy's voice was quiet; untroubled. He had to know what was happening, but he did not seem to mind. Nami's hands gripped the Sunny's rail as she braced herself, waiting for the inevitable blast of power that would send them all to the floor...

"Not only mine," Luffy said.

She saw the moment their gazes met. Dark Luffy's eyes had time to widen, but that was all.

The explosion of Haki shook the trees, bursting forth from Luffy and rippling through the air like a tsunami of pure energy. The ground shook, the air surged with power, and the hairs on Nami's neck stood on end. Above, the clouds that had gathered for Dark Luffy's Black Meridian burst apart, scattered to the winds by the sheer force of Luffy's will, sunlight blazing suddenly down once more upon a renewed Raftel. If Dark Luffy had himself tried to use Conqueror's Haki, it had been quelled so swiftly and so completely that no trace of it remained.

Staggering backwards a few paces, Dark Luffy bowed his head, and then sank down to his knees, breathing heavily.

As he knelt there, the fear that Nami had been feeling gradually dissipated, until she wondered why she had ever felt it at all. Under the blue sky and the sun, she realised something: this person, whoever he was and however much he looked like Luffy, was simply outclassed. No matter how extraordinary his powers might be; no matter how monstrous his attacks; he could never defeat Luffy. In fact, as he remained hunched over, winded by the power that had been unleashed upon him, she almost felt sorry for him. They were on completely different levels, and she could see that now. Alongside her, the rest of the crew watched silently, all knowing that the threat - for now - had gone. Luffy watched his counterpart silently, appearing utterly unfazed.

The sun glimmered on the back of Dark Luffy's head as he looked up. A thrill of shock passed through Nami as she saw that he was smiling.

"I suppose… I should have expected as much. Just remember," Dark Luffy snickered, seeming, for the first time, a little like his mirror image. "You won't get far on just your own power here. This was the first test. No one of you alone can reach the heart of this island. Still…" His form was losing integrity, Nami noticed suddenly; he looked to be fading away. "I'm defeated, at least for now."

With that, he was gone, his body vanishing into the sunbeams. His smile was last to go, drifting away like a wisp of smoke caught in a gust of wind.

Another low rumble shook the ground, and then the earth began to part, the arena splitting in two to allow the river to rush unimpeded through the place where the gates had once stood. Perhaps they would be able to travel farther on the Sunny after all. This time, though, the route was straight; an obviously artificial channel leading deeper into Raftel. The river was still flowing the wrong way, but after witnessing Luffy fighting his own reflection, the fact that water was travelling inland seemed like little more than an interesting side-note.

After a moment spent gathering herself, Nami took a deep breath. "Alright Franky, raise the anchor. Let's see where this takes us. Luffy!" Nobody responded. "Where is he?" she asked, exasperatedly.

"Glub glub glub…"

The sound emanating from below brought a stony expression to Nami's face.

"Our captain appears to have fallen into the river," Robin observed. "Possibly when the ground parted."

"Glub glub glub…"

"Will someone please fish him out?" Nami said exasperatedly.

"Going," replied Zoro, taking the time to casually place his weapons on the deck of the ship before leaping into the water. Nami sighed.

"Is it really too much to ask for him to take care of himself every now and again? Did he really need to let that guy hit him before beating him?"

"I think it may well be, unfortunately," Robin replied, smiling. "Besides, isn't that one of the reasons we are all here?"

Nami chuckled softly. "I suppose so."

As Zoro leapt back onto the ship, a bedraggled and dazed-looking Luffy under one arm, she shook her head ruefully. He really could be his own worst enemy sometimes.

She blinked. Had she really just come up with that dreadful pun completely by accident?

It was definitely time to move on.

"Get us out of here, Franky," she called, and the ship turned slowly about, carrying them onward down the river.


	5. Part 5: The Warship

**I will try to update every week or so. 2 weeks means I had writer's block! Hope this is OK :)  
**

* * *

The path was long and quiet, the river wide enough to make their passage farther into Raftel utterly uneventful. The wider the river grew, the larger the forest on either side of it became, and soon the branches were so dense and thicketed that it was difficult to discern anything beyond its immediate threshold.

"Looks like we're getting close to something," Sanji observed. He was right, and it was certainly an odd view for the centre of an island.

It looked like open sea, but most likely it was a large lake. As Nami shielded her eyes from the sun, she began - for the first time - to feel as if she had some idea of Raftel's overall shape. If she was right and they would soon find themselves on a lake, then the island was effectively the shape of a bowl, the lake itself lying below sea level and thereby drawing water in from the coast. Puzzled, she shook her head at the thought. The layout only raised more questions, principal among these being how the lake itself had not yet burst its banks. If water continually flowed into it, it ought to have stabilised at sea level. The distances involved just were not large enough for evaporation to fully account for the height discrepancy. The fact that the river was still moving, however, was evidence that it had not.

She made a sound of frustration.

"Something wrong?" Robin was looking at her sidelong. Nami shook her head.

"No, it's just something to do with the geography of this place. It doesn't fit, and I don't know why." Pressing two fingers to her forehead, she sighed, hoping to avert a headache. "I suppose it's all part of the mystery, right?" she mumbled.

"What about the geography?" Robin asked interestedly.

Sighing, Nami shook her head again. "If the river is flowing into a lake, like it looks to be," She gestured ahead. "Then the lake must be below sea level. But if the lake is below sea level, it should fill up because of the river, meaning that the river should stop flowing. But the river is flowing, and this lake isn't far enough inland for it all to have evaporated…" She kneaded her forehead again, frustrated. Robin was quiet for a moment, and then nodded slowly.

"I see what you mean. If the river flows into a lake in the centre of the island, it should rise to the level of the sea." Ponderously, she looked over the edge of the boat, peering down at the water. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Nami asked sharply, willing to take any explanation.

"Well, it's just a thought, but… what if something is controlling the water levels? Remember the way the ground parted before, letting us through? This island…" Robin frowned lightly. "It's certainly different to most islands. Perhaps that gate shut behind us, and acts as a kind of valve for the water flowing into the lake?"

"Yeah, I thought that at first, but then I remembered that we travelled down a _flowing river_ to get to the gate. Why would the water be moving if the gate was shut?"

Robin, who had looked confident in her answer, gradually began to look troubled. "I see. Yes, why did the water continue to flow at all when the gate was shut? It was still moving when we reached the closed gates. When I consider it… it's impossible. Those gates should have caused a dam."

"Underwater currents?" Nami mumbled, mostly to herself, conviction in her other solution growing. "I think you were right before. Something is controlling the water levels… moving liquid from one place to another, somehow. There must be a… tunnel system below the water, or something like that…"

Robin's frown deepened. Now that she had begun to think about the recent strange events, she did not seem to be able to stop. "Thinking about it, where did that gate even come from? Who built it? And that man who emerged from it - was he a real person or something else?"

Troubled, Nami could not think of a reply. They did not really have an answer to any of those questions. Dark Luffy had, as Robin had said, emerged from the gate - but that led them no closer to understanding the strange mechanics underlying the island's workings. Had Dark Luffy merely travelled through the gate, or had he and the gate been one and the same? Either way, the technology was beyond comprehension. But there was more to it than that: her mind was telling her that there was something very strange about Raftel, but she still could not pinpoint what it was.

Interrupting her thoughts, Zoro suddenly shouted down from the crow's nest: "Hey, there's something up ahead!"

Jumping to attention, Nami hurried to the front of the ship, squinting out across the water. As they passed from the mouth of the river out onto what indeed _was_ a large lake, she quickly saw what Zoro was talking about.

The lake was colossal, she noted, and bounded on three sides by dense woodland. Ahead, however, a sheer cliff face rose high into the sky, tufts of grass, weeds, and flowers pocketing its craggy surface. But that had not been what had initially caught her eye.

"What in the world…" Nami gasped.

The ruins looked ancient. Stone buildings, draped with vines, clung to the face of the cliff, each one the same clay colour as the stone into which it had been set. They varied in size: some vast and ornate, covered with elaborate stone filigree, but others simpler and modester, though still cut with a delicacy and precision that belied their location. Together, they formed a network of rooms and rocky passageways that stretched across the entire rockface, dizzying in its complexity. For a moment, Nami was lost for words.

"Incredible." Robin's voice was soft alongside her. There was awe in her eyes, and reverence in her words. "We know that the final Poneglyph is on Raftel, but to find this here, too…"

Finding her voice, Nami asked hoarsely: "What is it?"

"The architecture is the same as the Ancient Kingdom. I would recognise it-"

Abruptly, she tailed off. "Huh? Why'd you stop?" asked Nami, confused by the sudden pause.

There was a single crease on Robin's forehead; the smallest of frowns. "I… I'm sorry, I'm wrong." She shook her head slowly, now looking deeply puzzled. "It's not the same. The differences are not obvious - in fact, they're very subtle - but they're there. I mean, you would have had to have studied this for as long as I have to notice, but these ruins, however much they might look like buildings of the Ancient Kingdom, are actually the remnants of… well, I suppose I have to assume some _other _civilisation..."

"_Another_ one? What other civilisation?"

"I… don't know. There are very pronounced similarities between these buildings and those of the Ancient Kingdom, so I can only assume that whoever they were, they were somehow affiliated with them…"

"So… they knew each other, or something like that?" Nami asked, puzzled. Robin inclined her head in agreement.

"I would have to say so. I can't imagine that the styles would be so similar and yet completely unrelated," she confirmed.

"That's weird. I wonder what they were doing here?"

Robin smiled lightly. "I am wondering the same thing. Whoever they were, it is interesting that they once lived here, on Raftel, with the final Poneglyph. The Poneglyphs were built by the Ancient Kingdom, after all."

"More puzzles," Zoro barked down from the crow's nest, catching them at unawares. Nami was impressed that he had even been able to hear them. "I don't like this. Luffy isn't built for solving riddles, we could be here for weeks."

"Just keep your eyes on the water," Sanji replied sharply. He looked on-edge. "We can probably be seen for miles on this lake."

It was true, Nami realised with a jolt. Passing from the mouth of the river out onto the lake had taken away the sanctuary of the trees, and now they were drifting out into the centre of a body of water, which - if she was right about Raftel being bowl-shaped - was actually the centre of the entire island. Given the fact that all the surrounding terrain was elevated above the surface of the lake, it was hard to get more exposed.

"Hey, Franky," she said, suddenly a little nervous. "Take us over to one of the banks, this place is a little isolated. Try to get as close to those ruins as possible, I'm sure Robin will want a closer look."

"Understood," Franky replied, spinning the wheel with a flourish as he moved the Sunny away from the lake's centre.

"It probably doesn't make a difference, but since half of us can't fight in the water it's probably better to be closer to shore."

He accepted her explanation wordlessly, and when Nami glanced at him she noticed that the metal across his forehead seemed to have developed a more impressive sheen. Perhaps that was how he perspired now, she mused. He had to have ways of communicating his involuntary responses to situations, otherwise he would seem too much like a - well, like a robot. Maybe he, too, was feeling a little anxious.

"Hey, Nami," Luffy's voice jolted her from her thoughts. He was peering out across the water, mouth forming a circle of interest. "What's that?"

As the whole crew turned to look at what he had pointed out, a weight of dread settled in Nami's stomach. Luffy was not always the most observant person in the world, but when he did spot something it was inevitably important. It was a trait born of the same instinct that made him capable of unpacking the weaknesses of his enemies whilst fighting; an ability that had saved his and their lives on much more than just one occasion.

It did not take her long to locate the source of her captain's curiosity. A bright spot - only a couple of metres across - had appeared in the centre of the ruins, a patch of lilac gleaming on the stone cliff face. As she watched, it began to enlarge, the light in the middle becoming even more intense until she had to shield her eyes to stop herself from being dazzled.

The whole crew except Franky moved to the rail for a better look, watching as the glow became steadily more difficult to observe, the lake's water beginning to shimmer with the light's reflected radiance. But it was only when spiderweb cracks began to spread out across the cliff face and a high-pitched whining noise rose up to take the place of the silence that they began to realise that something huge was happening.

A jet of light burst forth suddenly from the ruins, streaking past the Thousand Sunny and shooting out across Raftel, leaving a burning path in the air in its wake. Having thrown her hand up reflexively, protecting her face, it took a few moments for Nami to register what had appeared.

"That's a laser!" exclaimed Franky, making Luffy's eyes light up like the beam itself.

And that was when the sound stopped, the high-pitched noise ceasing with a sharp, final abruptness. The beam burnt suddenly white, and Nami's blood ran cold.

"Oh s-" said Zoro.

She heard one other thing before she felt the full earth-shattering impact of the explosion that radiated outward from the laser: the sound of laughter, deep and throaty.

And then the hull of the Sunny bulged inward, wood shattering and metal buckling as the ship was lifted bodily from the water, borne aloft with what looked like half the water of the lake and hurled towards the forest.

It was strange. As her feet left the deck, Nami realised that she was probably going to die, and yet she felt nothing except the coldness which she had felt as soon as the sound had stopped. Time passed at a crawl as, just below her, the Sunny flew sideways, spraying debris in all directions as it broke apart, the keel already twisted far beyond repair - and that before it had even hit the trees. The ruins through which the beam had passed also looked to be splitting apart, the entire mountain bulging outward away from the detonation, rock and stone blasted into molten pulp as if they were nothing but ice before a flame.

Still Nami soared higher, riding the soundless ripple of the explosion up towards the sky. For a fraction of a second - all the time that she was aware of it - the feeling was almost peaceful.

And then the blast thundered deafeningly in her ears, her hair blew back, and she was swallowed by darkness.

* * *

Pain. That was all that Nami could feel as she lay on the forest floor, blinking dimly amid the wreckage of the Sunny. Planks and boards were scattered around her, mingling with the fallen branches that had been torn from the canopy by her falling body, but she had not even begun to consider what had just happened to her. Pain dominated her entire world, to such an extent that even the smallest movement seemed impossible.

"Round them up," a loud, abrasive voice called. "Put them all on the ship," it added, the statement followed by a gruff laugh, uniquely drawling.

"This one looks in a bad way, captain," a different voice proclaimed in response, closer.

"Dead?"

"I'll check." Nami was vaguely aware of someone crouching down next to her, tilting her head a little to check her eyes for activity. "She's alive, just stunned."

"Put her with the others then," the first voice replied, and she heard that strange laugh once again.

For a moment, as she rose into the air, Nami wondered if she truly had died, but then realised - with every agonising jolt - that she was being carried. Whoever had gathered her up was walking through the forest, gingerly stepping over the scattered, shattered debris of the ship that Nami had called home for years now. At one point, they stepped over what looked like a mast, ducking under a sheet of material that might have been a sail fluttering forlornly in the wind.

When they arrived at the shoreline, Nami saw that it, too, was covered with the remnants of the Sunny. Just like the beach that they had seen on the approach to Raftel, various - mostly now unrecognisable - items were scattered across the sands. The mountain into which the ruins had once been embedded had almost completely collapsed, torn into two distinct halves, water flowing slowly through the breach into the lake. Dimly, she realised that the laser may not have even been intended to hit their ship; it may simply have been intended to create a new waterway into Raftel. The thought was little consolation.

"Yes, bring her onboard as well!" the first voice roared, laced with amusement. Straining her neck, Nami managed to turn her head towards the source.

A ship. A vessel of such formidable size that she could not even frame the whole of it in her gaze. As she was carried to a nearby steel-framed gangplank, she caught a glimpse of two things only.

A word, etched in dark metal into the hull. _Pluton._

That would have been bad enough, but at the end of the gangplank she could see someone else grinning. Her eyes closed as she recognised the thickset figure with the cracked teeth and rugged facial hair. Of all the people to command one of the Ancient Weapons, he was the last person that she would have chosen.

Blackbeard watched as she was lifted onto the ship, her obvious pain only seeming to amuse him further. "Hurry up, put her with the rest then!" he barked.

As whoever was holding her redoubled his pace, the laugh came again, deep and unrestrained, following her as she was borne down into the depths of the ship.


End file.
